Thursday, July 12, 2007

Is Cold-Brewed the 'hottest' iced coffee?

Think Coffee
Think Coffee in Greenwich Village employs the cold-brewing method for its iced coffee.

I read this article a while ago on the net.
Curious about this so-called new way of making iced coffees i started to experiment.

Cold brewing asks for cold water in stead of warm.
You let the coarse ground coffee soak in the water over a night.
Then you filter it and the result should be a full and sweet tasting cup/glass of iced coffee.

Knowing my regular problems of instant brewed iced coffee's i was interested to give it a go (see photo).
Next to it i made another jug with the same technique, except with warm water.

The day after i filtered the coffee with a Chemex filter added a couple of ice cubes and tasted both (house blend) iced coffee's.
Besides of my planned Gimme and Grumpy bar visits i need to go to Think as well i guess, cause my cold-brewed iced coffee was not very tasty.
The warm-brewed iced coffee on the other side tasted just as described : full and sweet. Also full caf yes, but as a warm summer morning or afternoon drink this can't be a problem.

As i said before it isn't always easy to prepare large iced coffee without milk. The problem is you need a lot of ice cubes or ice cream to cool down the hot espresso. With this system you give it a night to chill in the fridge. So more work up front, but faster once prepared.

Later on the week i made me a jug Yirgacheffe iced coffee and that was - as expected - even better.
Then a glass with a bit of milk and bingo.
Nice idea for coffee of the week.
Now it's only a matter of waiting for the sun.

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